Korea Foundation builds Accident, Emergency Centre for Volta Regional Hospital

The Korea Foundation for International Healthcare (KOFIH) has commissioned and handed over a 20-bed capacity remolded and equipped Accident and Emergency Centre to the Volta Regional Hospital, Hohoe.

The Centre formed part of “KOFIH for the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Project in the Volta Region.”

Dr Eunji Kim, Health Advisor, KOFIH Ghana Office, said the commissioning of the Centre marked an important milestone and when in full operation, it was expected to create access to timely qualitative accidental and emergency services.

She said the Centre would also contribute to reducing the avoidable mortality in the region as well as in Ghana and believed that these purposes were achievable.

Dr Kim said KOFIH had supported the Hospital since 2013 to improve Maternal Newborn Child Health (MNCH) services including the renovation and equipping of the maternity theatre and the new-born intensive care unit.

She said KOFIH had trained health professionals to build their capacities in providing qualitative services to patients and noted that the Hospital, a major referral hospital beyond the region, had installed a tele-consultation centre playing a key role in the primary care provider network.

Dr Kim expressed gratitude to the Government, Regional Health Directorate and all stakeholders that had been working on the Project while reaffirming KOFIH’s continuous cooperation with the Volta Regional Hospital.

Miss Esther Kporwofe, Nurse Manager of the Hospital, in a speech on behalf of Dr Ahmed Habib, the Hospital’s Acting Medical Director, said KOFIH’s support in putting up the Centre was very timely following the Hospital’s upgrade from Municipal status.

Dr Habib said after over 50 years of the establishment of the Hospital, it could now boast of an ultra-modern emergency centre which would have a 20-bed capacity and well equipped with state-of-the-art equipment.

He said some of the equipment included patient monitors, defibrillators, electrocardiography machines, infusion pumps and blood warmers, all through the support of KOFIH.

Dr Habib said although the Centre was ready for use, the unavailability of pathway connecting it to other wards to ease movements of patients to the wards after they were stabilized was a challenge, adding that, the use of the most often crowded OPD ward as a pathway was not ideal.

He appealed for support from all stakeholders to help the Hospital erect a pavement to connect the Centre to other wards.

Dr Habib said out of 278 nurses and midwives of all categories in the Hospital, they had only one critical care nurse and an emergency nurse, and appealed to the Volta Regional Health Directorate and the Ghana Health Service to increase the quota allocation in critical nursing areas.

Dr Timothy Letsa, former Volta Regional Director of Health Services, said KOFIH’s support had improved healthcare delivery in the Volta and Oti regions adding that, the Volta region in 2021 was placed among highly performing regions in healthcare in the country for the first time.

He said the Centre would render quality emergency care to accident victims in the Volta and Oti regions, adding that, with construction of the Eastern Corridor Road, the Centre represented an excellent and timely emergency preparedness measure with a huge potential to save the lives of many.
Dr Letsa said the Centre would make a great impact to healthcare delivery in the Hospital and the region as a whole while urging management to put in place effective system to ensure proper care and maintenance of the building and the equipment.

Mr Daniel Noble Awume, Hohoe Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said the Assembly continued to deliver on its mandate of providing health facilities to improve quality health service delivery in the Municipality.

He said it was his expectation that the Centre would also help improve on health service delivery and appealed to health personnel especially at the Hospital’s OPD to be professional and offer the best of customer service care to its clients.

Source: newsghan.com.gh